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That old ‘unwatchable Aussie derbies’ chestnut raised its head again over the weekend. I’d say this was an annual event, but it’s a bit more regular than that these days.
Generally speaking, whenever two Australian Super Rugby teams face off, someone somewhere won’t have been impressed with it.
There’s any number of reasons why the ‘unwatchable’ tag is applied to local games, but mostly commonly it boils down to two main explanations: underwhelming skill levels, which is certainly evident at times, or the broader and completely subjective claim of not being entertaining enough.
And I do get the sentiment, even if I don’t completely agree with it.
The Queensland Reds have been copping it of late, and while there’s little doubt the skill level on display has at times been lacking in 2016, the concession surely exists that it’s tough to play entertaining rugby when there’s much bigger issues at hand.
After 17 phases couldn’t get within ten metres of the Rebels’ try line in Melbourne, Jake McIntyre didn’t take a shot at field goal that he really wasn’t that well-positioned for in the first place, and instead flung the ball out to the right with no time left on the clock. Samu Kerevi took the ball on the bounce, launched into contact himself, and lost it cold.
The Rebels recycled for a couple of phases, then won a full-arm penalty for the Reds being offside. Jack Debreczini put the ball into touch, and that was the game. The Reds had played a lot better in the last 30 minutes of the game, but weren’t good enough. And my faith in the phenomena that is teams winning after sacking their coach is still reeling.
On Twitter post-match, I summed things up.
That last passage sums up the Reds perfectly: good enough to get in position to score points, just not good enough to score them.. #REBvRED
— Brett McKay (@BMcSport) March 12, 2016
They’d lifted massively from the first half showing, and got themselves back into the game even, but when the game was properly on the line, the pressure proved too much for the players. The rebuild clearly has a long way to run, but for mine, there were positives for the Reds to take out of the performance.
A follower who may well be a Roar regular, and my apologies if you are and I’ve not joined the dots, replied a few minutes later.
“After watching the (Highlanders) efforts watching that game there was akin to a cure for insomnia. The Aussie conference is terrible,” Andy Muir wrote.
“I don’t think there’s much point comparing the conferences. All very different,” I replied.
“It’s a hard watch. Brumbies will be there or there abouts but apart from them it is hard see how the game is moving forward,” Andy countered a few minutes later.
Fair enough. He’d made his mind up, and was and is well entitled to share his view. I’d quite enjoyed the game, but knew that might just be me. You hold a coin up between two people, and they will have very different views despite looking at the same thing.
Come Sunday morning, Andy had sent me a link to former Wallaby Matt Burke’s column in the Fairfax papers. “Even Matt Burke can’t watch it!” he said.
The crux of Burke’s column was the demise of the Queensland Reds, particularly the events that led to Richard Graham’s 2015 reappointment and then sacking two games in 2016, with specific reference to the performance against the Force in the 20-6 loss.
“The disappointing element, however of last weekend’s Reds-Force clash was the on-field performance. The skill level from both outfits was abominable. It left a lot to be desired. You could have easily switched off the box it was so hard to watch,” Burke wrote, only four pars after starting an earlier paragraph with, “I’m never one to bash rugby…”
This talk about local games being ‘unwatchable’ raises one obvious question, though.
What exactly are we hoping to see when watching two Australian teams in action?
I don’t know that I do want to see two Australian sides throwing the ball from side to side, for starters. The ability to counter attack is well and good, but it’s the set piece and breakdown where modern rugby is won. I definitely don’t want to see ’10-man rugby’, and we thankfully don’t.
Was the Blues-Hurricanes so much more watchable? The match included nearly thirty knock-ons, and the Hurricanes’ tackle success rate was just 82 per cent. It had forty kicks in general play.
Was the Stormers-Sharks so much more watchable? That match had more than thirty knock-ons and averaged less than three metres per carry. And more than fifty kicks in general play!
It’s why I really don’t see the point in trying to compare the derby matches from conference to conference. The conferences all play different styles of rugby, and that’s one of the beauties of a competition like Super Rugby. I’d imagine they say the same thing in the north about the European Champions Cup. Do Irish fans say, ‘we should play more like the French teams’?
The two Australian derbies compared pretty well, for what it’s worth. 28 knock-ons in the Force-Brumbies game, and 24 in the Rebels-Reds. 3.4 metres and 3.7metres per carry, 39 and 45 missed tackles, with only the Reds at less than 85 per cent effectiveness.
So what is really so unwatchable?
Australian derby games mightn’t have the sublime skills of the Kiwi games, but are arguably harder and more physical at the breakdown and certainly more set piece focussed. They’re probably not as physical as the South African derbies, but are almost always played more expansively.
Obviously, what I find to be ‘watchable’ rugby is going to be different to the next guy; it’s a purely subjective view either way.
But I can’t help but wonder if attempting the comparisons in the first place is just a sure fire way of creating disappointment? And in which case, why do we do it to ourselves?